Latest in 2015

Yasser Seirawan: 20 Questions

Yasser Seirawan became World Junior Champion in 1979 and was twice a candidate for the World Championship title. He is currently commentating on the US Chess Championship, an event he has won four times. Kingpin interviewed him in 1998. What is your earliest memory of…

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Zukertort Zigzagged

 Zukertort – Potter London, 1876 Black to play   Black has been gradually outplayed and is hanging on by his fingertips. He’s a pawn down, his queen is attacked, and the threat of a4-a5 seems terminal. After 36…Qe4 37 Qxe4 fxe4 38 a4 the pawn will…

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Kirsan Caption Competition

To mark the historic visit of FIDE President His Excellency Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to London last week, we invite readers to offer captions to these excellent photos we’ve appropriated without permission from FIDE’s website. Winners will receive the following prizes: A trip to Mars to meet the President’s…

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Fiendish Moves #2

 Kupper – Leepin Basel, 1954 White to play   Black has nothing to fear from 27 Qd8+ Kh7 28 Nf8+ Kh6 29 Qd4 Re2 when the position is equal.      27 Nf8! A brilliant move, and the only decisive one.      27…Bh7 27…Qxe5 fails…

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The Dilettante

‘There is no need to play chess well at all. The dilettante who treats it almost completely as a game of chance doesn’t necessarily derive less pleasure from it than the grandmaster who strives for perfection.’  J.H. Donner NRC Handelsblad, 13 April 1981, reproduced in The King: Chess…

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Chess, Murder, Fraud

‘Everything about our situation was a riddle. Why would Karpov and three of his colleagues jump on a plane and fly hundreds of miles to Kalmykia to open a criminal case against me just for revenge?’ Bill Browder, Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No….

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Life

  ‘Chess is, famously, an activity entirely unrelated to the rest of life: from this springs its fragile profundity.’ Julian Barnes, ‘TDF: The World Chess Championship’ The New Yorker (December 1993) reproduced in Letters from London 1990-1995 (Picador, 1995), p.249   ‘We could even make…

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Has Karpov Lost His Marbles?

Tony Miles As it happens I am in a position to reveal exclusively to Kingpin readers (unless, of course, someone else actually offers to pay me) the true and tragic story of why the invincible Anatoly failed to dispose of that young upstart Kasparov. I…

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King of the Coffee House

This line as yet has no official name (except ‘Zaitsev line with 8 Bc4’); it is generally referred to as simply ‘The Hack Line’, or for reasons which are rather obscure, the The Nescafé® Frappé Attack or NFA for short. Graham Burgess, Attacking the Benko: The Nescafé® Frappé…

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